Study On The Syntactic Patterns In Relation To The Positive And Negative Forms Of The "Shi" Structure In Modern Chinese

This thesis is a quantitative and qualitative study on the syntactic patterns in relation to the positive and negative forms of the "shi" structure in modern Chinese by using language data, the "hypothesis of the pivotal status of clauses" as its theoretical basis, and by using the dynamic "researching approach of triangular study of linguistic form, semantic meaning and pragmatic value". The introductory part of the thesis discusses the present researching status and the basic types of the "shi" structure, introduces the factual and theoretical basis, and outlines the author's researching framework. In the main body of the thesis, the following problems have been discusses: the basic syntactic relations of the positive and negative forms of the "shi" structure in modern Chinese; different syntactic patterns containing the "shi" structure; the syntactic elements before and after the "shi" structure; the shortened and extended forms of the "shi" structure; the asymmetry among the patterns; and the comparison with the "positive-positive" structure and the "negative-negative" structure. The syntactic patterns of the "shi" structure can be divided into sentence patterns and clause patterns. In sentence patterns, the semantic relations are basically contrastive and concessive ones. In clause patterns, the relations are coordinate, causal and concessive. Of all the semantic relations, the contrastive is the most common. Different semantic relations have different selections of and governing force over the types, formations and elements of the syntactic patterns of the "shi" structure. Grammatical devices such as elision, implication, and sharing form the shortened patterns. Grammatical devices such as expansion, attachment, and multi-correspondence form the extended patterns. These patterns can perform the function of object, can be further embedded and can help to form dynamic context. These patterns include positive-negative and negative-positive structures, between which there are syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discourse asymmetries. These patterns can be regarded as a subcategory of syntactic patterns of the "shi" structure and have similar and different features as those of positive-positive and negative-negative structures. In the concluding part, the author claims that linguistic research should be based on data and evidence, should relate closely to the theories that are able to explain data of Chinese, and should lay emphasis on the openness and expansion of linguistic theories.